this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
111 points (86.8% liked)

Selfhosted

46677 readers
2080 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A few months ago, I posted here about my excitement for Plebbit and the promise it held for decentralization. I was convinced that a p2p social platform with a unique UI could be the future, with different UI of all social media..including Lemmy, a true alternative to centralized services. I saw the potential, and I wanted to believe in it.

Plebbit promised a lot of an innovative interface, decentralization, community driven governance. But after months of delays, vague updates, and little to no progress, it’s clear they never delivered. They had the right ideas but lacked the follow through to make them a reality. What was once an exciting project quickly turned into an example of what can go wrong when the hype overshadows the substance.

I wanted Plebbit to succeed, but in the end, I’ve realized that I’m better off sticking with what actually works.

If Plebbit had actually followed through on its promises especially with its vision of being a decentralized Reddit alternative. it could have been the best. The idea of a selfhosted platform, where users had true control over their content and communities, was a dream for those of us who wanted more than just another centralized app. It had the potential to be the go-to solution for anyone seeking real decentralization and p2p freedom. But unfortunately, that potential was never realized. Instead of delivering on its ambitious promises, Plebbit became just another project that failed to meet expectations, and the opportunity for a truly revolutionary platform faded away.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)

I'm a little confused on this point. I took a look at their whitepaper and it says that they're not using blockchain at all. It's some sort of ~~proprietary~~ (edit: apparently open source) peer to peer algorithm. Is this something that changed in implementation? I'm not really familiar with this project so I'm certainly not trying to defend anything, just unclear as to why people are calling it a blockchain project specifically.

Edit: OK, after some more digging I see what people are talking about. The project itself isn't blockchain based, but it's run by a DAO that operates using a governance token, which is not exactly great.

[–] rinse@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I took a look at their whitepaper and it says that they’re not using blockchain at all

If community owners want to set a blockchain name like hello.eth or hello.sns it's possible, but it's optional.

It’s some sort of proprietary peer to peer algorithm. Is this something that changed in implementation?

Not true, it's free software released under GPL V2, check out plebbit-js

but it’s run by a DAO that operates using a governance token, which is not exactly great.

What is the problem with DAOs? I think they're a great way of facilitating coordination between anons on the internet

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

So, from what I've read, and you're welcome to correct me if I'm wrong on any of the facts here, your DAO operates using a governance token that can be traded on crypto markets.

If that's the case, those are just grey-market voting shares. All you've done is create a corporation and sell shares, while avoiding all of the legal protections that would be afforded to your shareholders if you actually went through the process of creating a corporation and holding an IPO.

So, based on those facts as I understand them, I guess I'd say I have two problems.

  1. Voting power decided by buying power is about the most undemocratic system possible short of autocracy.
  2. Obfuscating the purpose and structure of your organization to either intentionally or unwittingly dodge regulations that would protect your shareholders is not a great look.
[–] rinse@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Voting power decided by buying power is about the most undemocratic system possible short of autocracy

The token is not forced upon anyone, and even if we start including it in the clients somehow, anybody can fork the clients and remove any token related stuff out of it.

Tokenizing your own project is a great way of supporting development without selling shares to VCs who only care about hyper growth, regardless of the ideals of the project.

Obfuscating the purpose and structure of your organization to either intentionally or unwittingly dodge regulations that would protect your shareholders is not a great look.

Not sure what you mean by that, everything we do is out in the open.

load more comments (6 replies)